I should like to comment on the article Towards a Dutch
Association for Asian Studies written by Professor Wim Stokhof
in IIAS Newsletter 8. In his article, Professor Stokhof is
singing the praise of American organizations and he was very
impressed by a conference of some three thousand Asianists in
Hawai'i. He proposed the creation of a Dutch Association for
Asian Studies and even a larger one: a European Association.
The article made me wonder if larger in this case is also better.
In my experience, the smallest conferences or meetings were the
best. I remember taking part in a small conference in Sheffield
in which only some fifteen specialists took part, and what a
great time we had! On the other hand there was the, then named,
CISHAAN conference in Tokyo with so many participants (though
less than 3000) that it was difficult to find the people one
wanted to meet. Even in the history section of the EAJS
conference in Copenhagen in 1994 the question was raised of
whether the section should be split up in two parts: one for
modern and one for older history.
In a way, Professor Stokhof is contradicting himself. He states
that the individual basis will remain a crucial aspect of
research in Asia. Then why this megalomania? All individual
researchers have their own networks of friends and colleagues in
Europe and in Asia. By way of the internet and mailservers like
H-ASIA and H-JAPAN, it is easy to keep in touch with them and
even to make new friends. I see no need for a Dutch Association
which would unite all people in some way concerned with research
on Asian subjects whose only point in common is that they
research some aspect of an enormously large geographical area
which does not even form a unity in itself. I doubt if a larger
organization, Dutch or European, would have anything else to
offer than some well-paid jobs to just another group of
'regents'.
It does not surprise me that politicians are watching the
possible creation of such organizations with interest as it is
offering them an opportunity to get another part of society in
their grips. I am not eager to see the creation of yet another
bureaucracy.
Herman J. Moeshart, M.A.
Department of Archaeology and Art History, 'Prentenkabinet',
Leiden University
In March 1994 I was asked by prof. Jan Breman -- who did an evaluation of the then existing Nordic research professorship with NIAS (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies) and hence toured our countries to ask senior scholars for their opinions -- if I would approve of the proposition that in the future the position would be open to applicants from other countries as well. My answer, of course, was positive. International exchange and competition, I thought, could only benefit the future development of Nordic research on issues related to Asia. Nordic students of Asia should cooperate internally on practical matters, but when carrying out research we must form part of an international scholarly community in the field. A scholarly community within which one must, of course accept and promote free and open competition-cum-discourse on what should be regarded as the scientifically best and most relevant research. Hence, I was quite happy when, one year later,m the Asia Committee of the European Science Foundation (ESF) invited anyone qualified to apply for the new professorship with NIAS.
By now, however, my attitude towards the arrangement is much less positive. Not because I want to question the judgement of the selection committee, whose members, I am sure, are highly qualified. And especially not because I myself applied for the position and did not get it. That is not important. I was never presumptuous enough to think that my own merits would be rated best in such a wide international competition. But I was eager to learn from a transparent academic evaluation of my own and others' work. And the real problem -- which is of general importance -- is that this did not take place. It was not at all the open academic competition-cum-discussion about the best research on Asia that I thought I had approved of, and which I now believe many agree must be established.
As far as I know, the applicants have not even received any information about how the selection committee made their judgements and what arguments they put up for and against the different candidates -- only a very brief letter saying that there were nineteen applications and the committee had carefully considered the merits and made its decision; no names were mentioned. According to the director of NIAS, professor Thommy Svensson, all but this (plus the name of the person selected, which was announced in the NIAS newsletter two months later) is classified information. As the director of NIAS and chairman of the Asia Committee he has official access to the adjudications and arguments, in contrast to the democratically appointed board of NIAS which has delegated the issue to ESF. Had this kind of delegation not occurred, or if the board had at least been officially informed, the documents would have been made public, in accordance with Nordic rules.
On the one hand in retrospect, one may say that it was naive of
me to assume that standards similar to those applied in Sweden
would continue to be followed as we embark on European academic
cooperation. Such standards require that the applicants for a
professorship as well as the public are informed about which
merits will be considered and how these will be weighted;
informed about which experts have been proposed to judge these
merits (against whom the applicants can lodge an objection);
informed about how the appointed experts have argued for and
against the applicants and ranked them; and, finally, informed
about who has been selected -- whereafter any of the applicants
are free, again, to lodge appeals. This does not rule out
favourite candidates being selected, but at least the experts
must officially argue for these persons and against the others.
And even if outside the universities certain research foundations
and institutes, like NIAS, are less principled, their decisions,
along with the basic arguments are always made public.
On the other hand, if I had been less naive and realized that our
codes would not be followed at the European level, the only
logical conclusion would have been to turn down the proposition
put forward by Jan Breman, despite its basic merits. So now that
I, fortunately, was so naive, I must instead proceed by arguing
in favour of those principles before, at worst, having to reject
the current NIAS/ESF model and propose one which is altogether
different.
I know, of course, that there are various traditions of academic administration in the European countries. But just as we all agree to respect universal human rights and basic principles of democracy, I believe we should also follow universal academic principles of primacy of the argument and free and open discourse. Or do we not consider them to be universal? Moreover, I know, of course, of the standard argument within the European Union about the difficulties of negotiating and getting things done if there is full transparency and if all the procedures, criteria, and decisions -- along with the basis for them -- are made public. But even if I agreed to this argument (which I do not) we may now limit ourselves to the academic sphere. And the very idea of academic work, if I am not mistaken, is that it should not be about negotiations, politics, or entrepreneurship - - but about the primacy of the argument rather than power, and about studies and discourse which are as free and open and critical as possible. If this does not prevail shall we otherwise legitimate our work and positions? And how would ESF legitimate its appointments?
In conclusion, therefore, I must first ask the director and the board of NIAS why they surrendered the basic principles we adhere to in the Nordic countries and how they will act in the future? Secondly, I would like to ask the members of the ESF's Asia Committee for their arguments against such principles and if they are prepared to rethink.
Olle Törnquist
Reader, Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden
The ESF Asia Committee (AC) was established in 1994. Its
membership is made up of 18 senior scholars selected by ESF
member organizations in Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria,
Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Scandinavia. The
AC manages a post-doctoral fellowship programme financed by
contributions from ESF-member countries. The first ESF fellows
for 1-3 years were selected at a meeting of the AC in August last
year, along with the holder of the NIAS Research professorship
which was contributed to the programme by the Nordic Council of
Ministers.
Törnquist asks how the AC made its judgements about the
holders, and is critical of the perceived lack of
transparency.
The AC based its decisions on written evaluations of the
applicants, made independently from each other by senior experts.
These senior experts were selected after consultations among the
AC-members to cover different disciplines and countries/regions
in Asia. The candidates for the research professorship were
evaluated by four senior professors selected by the executive
group of the AC for their strong standing in the major fields
covered by the applicants. The evaluations assessed the quality
of the proposed project in particular with regard to innovative
aspects and interdisciplinary, scientific track record,
publications, and the appropriateness of the receiving institute
for the proposed research. For the Research Professorship, five
candidates were shortlisted and their applications circulated in
advance to the members of the AC; the other applications were
available for inspection at the meeting. The final decision of
the AC was in line with the ranking made by the evaluators. As
can be concluded from this, an appropriate procedure for serious
scientific evaluation has been followed.
There are good reasons to opt for the kind of full transparency
requested by Törnquist. It is clear, however, that there are
several different traditions in Europe in this regard. We
consider it unrealistic to demand that the rules should be
entirely in agreement with the selection procedures in each
country. When the first round of ESF-fellows were selected last
year, the AC had not had opportunity to refine the selection
procedure in such detail as is the practice, for instance, in the
Scandinavian countries. This meant that the evaluators were not
notified in advance that their assessments should be considered
to be public documents. For the second round of fellowships, on
which the AC will decide in late August 1996, such a policy has
now been formulated. It means that the assessments, in anonymous
form, will be available for the applicants, if they so wish, and
as requested by Törnquist. We believe this will be to the
benefit of the European scholarly community in Asian Studies.
Thommy Svensson, Director of NIAS and Chairman of the
ESF/AC
Max Sparreboom, Coordinator of the ESF/AC